Spotlight on: MAYDAY (Music by Dimitri Landrain, book and lyrics by Jason Hart)

Manhattan Theatre Mission is excited and delighted to produce our second Showcase of New Musicals! Following up on the rousing success of last year's Showcase, we look forward to bringing you four diverse offerings from some of today's up-and-coming talent! In the coming weeks, we will be spotlighting each of our selected shows to give you a taste of the excellent material we have planned for this year. This week's spotlight is on MAYDAY (music by Dimitri Landrain, book and lyrics by Jason Hart).

Inspired by a Fitzgerald novella, MAYDAY is the story of a group of American soldiers trying to readjust to life and society after returning from Afghanistan. The show explores the relationship between soldier and civilian (and how they're changed by war) while probing both the causes and the human effects of the War on Terror. Landrain's score mixes energetic, dissonant numbers with tender, haunting ballads, capturing both the chaos of battle and the toll that chaos takes on the soul. At once explosive and intimate, MAYDAY is a modern, relevant story that provides abundant dramatic food for thought.

The show has been a labor of love and passion for Hart and Landrain, who were initially drawn to the story by the contemporary parallels they observed in Fitzgerald's WWI novella.  Noting that media and political circumstances often result in civilians being presented with an incomplete picture of a soldier's life, the pair seeks to bring the emotional immediacy of musical theatre to a kind of story too infrequently seen onstage.  To that end, MAYDAY  powerfully and critically contrasts the horror of death with the wonder of love.  When asked about their big dreams for the show, Hart stated the goal as "End war.  A Broadway run would be nice, too."

Manhattan Theatre Mission is excited and honored to include MAYDAY in this year's Showcase!  Further information about the piece can be found at www.maydaymusical.com.  Be sure to check out the link below for an audio sample of one of the show's ballads, "Monet".

We hope you'll make plans to attend our 2nd Annual Showcase of New Musicals! Tickets are $15 in advance and $18 at the door. Buy now and save! 

www.manhattantheatremission.com